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British man’s selfie with EgyptAir hijacker goes viral

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An Aberdeen man posed for a photo with a hijacker who used a fake suicide belt to take control of an Egyptian plane. Oil and gas industry auditor Ben Innes, 26, took a picture with a man identified by Cypriot officials as Seif Eldin Mustafa.

London:A man who posted a smiling selfie with the EgyptAir hijacker and which went viral on the social media has been identified as a 26-year-old Briton, the media reported on Wednesday.

Benjamin Innes, who is from Leeds but lives in Aberdeen, was held hostage along with 56 passengers on EgyptAir MS181 flight by Seif El Din Mustafa.

Mustafa had personal motives to hijack the plane and his action was later linked to his ex-wife, who is a Greek-Cypriot and lives in Larnaca.

Innes, seen in the selfie with Mustafa, posed it to his friends on Twitter with a message: “You know your boy doesn’t f*** about. Turn on the news lad!!!”

A friend replied: “Is that a bomb attached to the guys chest? You ok? Let us know when you get off.”

According to Daily Mail, Innes is believed to have approached Mustafa while being held hostage on the tarmac and sent the photo to one of his flatmates as well as other friends.

“I have no idea why he took the selfie but I imagine he probably volunteered to take it as he’s no afraid to shy away from anything,” Innes’ friend Chris Tundogan told MailOnline.

The social media went wild over the photo with the hijacker and several Twitter users lauded the British man for the daring “selfie.

Later, the Cyprus foreign ministry announced the arrest of the hijacker, who had taken charge of the Airbus 320 when it was on its way from Alexandria to Cairo saying he was armed with explosives. The plane was flown to Larnaca in southern Cyprus.

Cyprus officials who had held intense negotiations with the man said he would be interrogated at length. One Egyptian officer dubbed him “mentally unstable”.

Soon after it landed in Cyprus, the hijacker freed most of the passengers, holding back only four crew members and three passengers whose nationality was not disclosed by officials.

As the negotiations continued with the man, the seven escaped — six of them simply walking out of the step ladder and the seventh hurling himself out of the cockpit window.

Earlier, the hijacker was mistakenly identified as Ibrahim Samaha, also an Egyptian. Samaha, however, turned out to be an innocent passenger.

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Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones

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CasinoDays India

International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.

Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.

The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.

Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile

The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.

CasinoDays India

The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.

“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.

Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings

Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.

 

CasinoDays India

Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).

Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.

The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.

Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.

Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities

The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.

On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.

Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.

“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.

The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.

 

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